Name: John Madden on Letterman, March 3, 1983
Uploaded: 2021-12-29T02:14:12.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'John Madden on Letterman, March 3, 1983' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-12-29. Transcript available. John's only guest appearance on Dave. Taped the day before.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'John Madden on Letterman, March 3, 1983' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-12-29. Transcript available. John's only guest appearance on Dave. Taped the day before.

thank you very much thank you we have a we have a fine program for you folks
tonight uh last night
my first guest won an emmy as best sports analyst commentator and before that
he had been the
youngest head coach in the history of the nfl and one of the most successful
and the most
successful we're delighted that he's here tonight please welcome mr john madden
first of all congratulations uh on your emmy last night and this uh i said that
wrong the first
time you are the most successful coach in nfl history there's a lot of ways
they count those
things up i i uh percentage wise i think yeah the highest winning percentage i
think so who would
who would be of the active people close to you now don shula i think don shula
would be close
tom landry of course yeah bud grant let me ask you uh before we get on to other
matters about herschel
walker uh recently signed for a huge sum of money didn't complete his senior
year at georgia uh do
you have any opinion on that or yeah i have i have three feelings on it one i
think it was it was smart
for herschel walker you know you take a kid he has the opportunity to do it now
he got five
million dollars for three years there was some talk that it was sixteen and a
half million it was five
million he got a million dollars cash up front and you know you never know what's
going to happen
next year i mean he could not take that money and then go out and get injured
at georgia and he has
nothing by doing this i think you know he had an opportunity he took advantage
of it so i think it was
good for herschel walker i think it was a great coup for the for the new league
the usfl because it gave them
a lot of credibility yeah well yes and no it did from the standpoint that
suddenly they had a world
class football player in their midst but then the the commissioner said no no
we're not going to be
tampering with the college players before their eligibility and uh when he had
a chance to act on
the decision he said well no this is kind of a special case so i think so i
think they had to do it
you know there's so many lawsuits now if you if you have someone who wants to
sign herschel walker
wanted to sign and he wants to sign and he's ready you darn near have to sign
him i mean i think he
could have really done the same thing to the national football league yeah so i
don't know i mean i think
it was good for the league because they got him now they may say that you know
we're sorry we didn't
mean to do that but it's done they do have him yeah that was a coup i don't
know necessarily that it's
good for college football i think that once that damn breaks you know that's
one thing they take
the basketball players out of college uh before their eligibility is up into
the pros they do it
with the baseball players and the one thing football never had was the player
that would go to the
pros before his eligibility was finished and once you crack that thing it could
open wide and that
could be some problems well it was it was ugly for me nbc drafted me right out
of junior high so it was
uh i feel like that potentially was damaging we have some uh photos here of you
in action as a coach
now where are you regarded as a guy who was baiting officials nasty to him i
used to no i used to talk
to i was never i was always nice to him you know all right here's john madden
being nice to an nfl
official and uh do you remember the circumstance there probably it looks like
the guy was telling me
that someone was in bounds or something and i was saying he was out of bounds
you never know with
those guys you know they're nice guys but i remember once this could be the
time it wasn't but up in
denver we were playing in denver once and the only 15 yard penalty i ever had
in my life in a regular
season game and what happened was jack tatum hit a guy on the sidelines in
bounds and knocked him out of
bounds and the referee throws a flag so i say you know that's that's wrong i
mean he hit him it's not a
penalty you know then i added a few bleeps so what were the bleeps give us an
indication of how severe
the bleeps might have been uh severe bleeps i mean when you talk about bleeps
we're talking about good
strong bleeps we're not talking about the time that you the type you talk about
but things have loosened up
since then is there a chance that you could no it's still too strong even under
a loosened up type of
deal so anyway so the official goes and they mark off the 15 yards against us
so then he comes back
and said who did you call a bleep so i'm still mad so i said look there's only
one bleep here and that's
you you bleep so now he throws the flag on me because i told the truth i could
have said my equipment man
did it no so now they go and they march another 15 yards off us so you know we
finally calm down get
the things straightened out the next pass craig morton goes back to pass phil
villapiano my linebacker
intercepts it runs it back to the 50. we get the ball kenny stable our
quarterback goes in throws a
touchdown pass and the first play to dave casper so now we're lining up for the
next kickoff and that
same official is on the sideline there and i walk up to him and i says that
proves you're a bleep
that's probably that's probably what i was doing that
you um i oh we have to go away for commercial but we'll be right back john madden
and i will return we
have to uh all kinds of stuff here tonight
thank you welcome back uh to the program john madden is here tell me about uh
when you were
coaching you still of course would have expert insight into the sport as you uh
do when you're
providing analysis for the games tell me a couple of your theories i know you
had a theory about uniforms
uniform numbers well yeah i always had this feeling that people should have the
right number
and uh i used to do this as a kid i would see something you know and i'd say
you know that this i'm
this number and so and so is that number and i still feel the same way that you
know there's certain
things that just don't look right for example you take the number 83 that
couldn't be a six foot
one 280 pound nose tackle 83 has to be a tall guy 83 is a tall number you know
you and then conversely
a guy who's 66 and is six foot eight just doesn't look good he doesn't he doesn't
look right yeah those
would be for uh for the dumpy guard yeah yeah the dumpy type guy you know and
then the 74 is a tackle
type and the 80s are the big defensive ends the 70 the large 70s they're the
the bigger tackles and so
on have you have you thought about putting together a brochure with a a number
and then and then a body
example of what you know 77 and then you have a dumpy guy and then a 42 and you
have a you know well
77 is not dumpy now 77 is tall and this that's what i mean you know like a 73
is a good dumpy guy
your strong dumpy would be 66. that's a good solid dumpy now what what 63 is
nice dumpy what were you
when you played 77 so you were the 77. no no and are you finding much interest
in this theory around
the league well you know uh there are some teams that will listen to me because
i said this guy just
doesn't you can't play with that number and uh yeah i i do find some interest
they've changed uh some
things now in the nfl where a defensive lineman can't be an 80 number so it's
tough for a good
defensive lineman who's tall to play the game anymore yeah that's why you see
all the short
guys nose tackle these ugly uh ugly guys too oh yeah you gotta be ugly
especially play nose tackle
wear those big face masks now you have you have another theory about uh
facilities locker rooms
i really think i mean i i i seriously feel this that that the more money that
players make today
the the more sparse their locker room should be and i think when you pay a guy
millions of dollars
and then you have these big thick carpets and so on and let them come in he
forgets what football is
all about and they don't like to go out and play and i've seen it happen i
really believe years ago it
happened to kansas city chiefs you know they were a great football team then
they got arrowhead stadium and
they had thick carpets they had these whirlpools of 10 12 guys hank liked that
hank stram liked stuff
like that good carpet and so yeah he did well talking about hank locker room
see at oakland we believe
man nothing we wouldn't even put a carpet on the floor and we had the floor and
the towels we'd throw
some towels there and that was carpet but that was one of the advantages i
always felt that that we had
in oakland in the oakland coliseum is that it was tough to come out there we
had great fans here the
other team coming they would really get on really boom and being down there
below the locker rooms it
was you know kind of dirty and musty and stinky and and so on and now you're
talking stuff yeah now you're
doing real football and our guys kind of love that yeah you know the open raiders
one time
we were playing the chiefs and uh it was a day before the game and i was
walking out of our locker
room and i was going by the visiting team locker room the day before i saw
about five or six guys
out there exterminator type guys and i asked them what they were doing they
said well we have some rats we
found some rats in this locker room in the visiting team room and we're trying
to get rid of them i said get
rid of them baloney i said feed them yeah don't get rid of them i don't want
that's what i wouldn't let
them do it i said get out we'll pay you whatever you leave leave the rats and
you know if you found
something so now we're playing the chiefs the next day so i'm the host coach so
i figure well you know
you got to be a good host so i went up and it was the chiefs were in the locker
room this is a couple
hours before the game locker rooms before our game are very quiet so i went up
and i knocked in the door
and i said i'd like to see hank and they come up so i talked real loud and i
said hank listen we have a
problem here there's some rats in the locker room now we're trying to get rid
of them we're trying to
get rid of these rats we'll do something we're doing everything we can about
this thing but you know
and you can see the players they're afraid to put their helmets on they're
checking their pants and
take a lot but those types of things uh they help that's that's you know when
you talk about home
field advantage that's what you're talking about that's good that's good heady
football uh we're
going to pause for station identification john madden and i will return right
after that
uh we're talking uh with uh recent uh emmy award winner john madden now uh when
you were coaching
and of course you explained the home field advantage and what that means uh did
you have anything
inspirational to leave with players before they went out into combat yeah and i
had no idea what it
meant i used to always get in there and just before you know we'd get ready to
go out there would call
up all the players and i would say if we were kicking off or receiving and then
what we were going to do
and the last thing i always said was don't worry about the horse being blind
just load the wagon yeah
walk out i have no idea what it meant but my guys liked it you know they'd go
yeah you know boom we'd go
first out of there never never had anyone ask me hey coach what's that mean i
don't know but it sounds
good doesn't it hey don't worry about the horse being blind just load the wagon
that's right go uh
that makes it sound like you're going to accomplish something now you don't
know that you don't know
the origin of it you just came to you one day yeah i just i don't know i may
have heard it one day
or it just came to me one day and then i used it for years it'd be nice to have
that on a plaque
somewhere wouldn't it on a plaque don't worry about the horse being blind load
the wagon uh it was a
a pleasure meeting you i've admired your work for as long as you've been doing
it and uh again
congratulations on your emmy award and come back and see us again if you will
thank you
don't worry about the horse being blind just load the wagon speaking of loading
the wagon tomorrow uh
we're not normally on friday night and the reason for that is not clear to me
but uh
tomorrow is one of those deals where we will be on and on that program tomorrow
we're darn proud
about it ladies and gentlemen actress comedian madeline khan will be joining us
uh comedian peewee herman
will sort of be joining us uh singer chaka khan will be joining us uh we'll
also have steve khan on guitar
uh larry bud melman will be here tomorrow night we and taxi races that's right
three people from our
studio audience will try and race cabs around one block of rush hour traffic
right here in new york
city so uh that'll be tomorrow night on uh the anomaly we like to call our uh
90 minute program
also uh jerry seinfeld will be joining us and the gentleman who calls trains
down at penn station

John Madden on Letterman, March 3, 1983

thank you very much thank you we have a we have a fine program for you folks
tonight uh last night
my first guest won an emmy as best sports analyst commentator and before that
he had been the
youngest head coach in the history of the nfl and one of the most successful
and the most
successful we're delighted that he's here tonight please welcome mr john madden
first of all congratulations uh on your emmy last night and this uh i said that
wrong the first
time you are the most successful coach in nfl history there's a lot of ways
they count those
things up i i uh percentage wise i think yeah the highest winning percentage i
think so who would
who would be of the active people close to you now don shula i think don shula
would be close
tom landry of course yeah bud grant let me ask you uh before we get on to other
matters about herschel
walker uh recently signed for a huge sum of money didn't complete his senior
year at georgia uh do
you have any opinion on that or yeah i have i have three feelings on it one i
think it was it was smart
for herschel walker you know you take a kid he has the opportunity to do it now
he got five
million dollars for three years there was some talk that it was sixteen and a
half million it was five
million he got a million dollars cash up front and you know you never know what's
going to happen
next year i mean he could not take that money and then go out and get injured
at georgia and he has
nothing by doing this i think you know he had an opportunity he took advantage
of it so i think it was
good for herschel walker i think it was a great coup for the for the new league
the usfl because it gave them
a lot of credibility yeah well yes and no it did from the standpoint that
suddenly they had a world
class football player in their midst but then the the commissioner said no no
we're not going to be
tampering with the college players before their eligibility and uh when he had
a chance to act on
the decision he said well no this is kind of a special case so i think so i
think they had to do it
you know there's so many lawsuits now if you if you have someone who wants to
sign herschel walker
wanted to sign and he wants to sign and he's ready you darn near have to sign
him i mean i think he
could have really done the same thing to the national football league yeah so i
don't know i mean i think
it was good for the league because they got him now they may say that you know
we're sorry we didn't
mean to do that but it's done they do have him yeah that was a coup i don't
know necessarily that it's
good for college football i think that once that damn breaks you know that's
one thing they take
the basketball players out of college uh before their eligibility is up into
the pros they do it
with the baseball players and the one thing football never had was the player
that would go to the
pros before his eligibility was finished and once you crack that thing it could
open wide and that
could be some problems well it was it was ugly for me nbc drafted me right out
of junior high so it was
uh i feel like that potentially was damaging we have some uh photos here of you
in action as a coach
now where are you regarded as a guy who was baiting officials nasty to him i
used to no i used to talk
to i was never i was always nice to him you know all right here's john madden
being nice to an nfl
official and uh do you remember the circumstance there probably it looks like
the guy was telling me
that someone was in bounds or something and i was saying he was out of bounds
you never know with
those guys you know they're nice guys but i remember once this could be the
time it wasn't but up in
denver we were playing in denver once and the only 15 yard penalty i ever had
in my life in a regular
season game and what happened was jack tatum hit a guy on the sidelines in
bounds and knocked him out of
bounds and the referee throws a flag so i say you know that's that's wrong i
mean he hit him it's not a
penalty you know then i added a few bleeps so what were the bleeps give us an
indication of how severe
the bleeps might have been uh severe bleeps i mean when you talk about bleeps
we're talking about good
strong bleeps we're not talking about the time that you the type you talk about
but things have loosened up
since then is there a chance that you could no it's still too strong even under
a loosened up type of
deal so anyway so the official goes and they mark off the 15 yards against us
so then he comes back
and said who did you call a bleep so i'm still mad so i said look there's only
one bleep here and that's
you you bleep so now he throws the flag on me because i told the truth i could
have said my equipment man
did it no so now they go and they march another 15 yards off us so you know we
finally calm down get
the things straightened out the next pass craig morton goes back to pass phil
villapiano my linebacker
intercepts it runs it back to the 50. we get the ball kenny stable our
quarterback goes in throws a
touchdown pass and the first play to dave casper so now we're lining up for the
next kickoff and that
same official is on the sideline there and i walk up to him and i says that
proves you're a bleep
that's probably that's probably what i was doing that
you um i oh we have to go away for commercial but we'll be right back john madden
and i will return we
have to uh all kinds of stuff here tonight
thank you welcome back uh to the program john madden is here tell me about uh
when you were
coaching you still of course would have expert insight into the sport as you uh
do when you're
providing analysis for the games tell me a couple of your theories i know you
had a theory about uniforms
uniform numbers well yeah i always had this feeling that people should have the
right number
and uh i used to do this as a kid i would see something you know and i'd say
you know that this i'm
this number and so and so is that number and i still feel the same way that you
know there's certain
things that just don't look right for example you take the number 83 that
couldn't be a six foot
one 280 pound nose tackle 83 has to be a tall guy 83 is a tall number you know
you and then conversely
a guy who's 66 and is six foot eight just doesn't look good he doesn't he doesn't
look right yeah those
would be for uh for the dumpy guard yeah yeah the dumpy type guy you know and
then the 74 is a tackle
type and the 80s are the big defensive ends the 70 the large 70s they're the
the bigger tackles and so
on have you have you thought about putting together a brochure with a a number
and then and then a body
example of what you know 77 and then you have a dumpy guy and then a 42 and you
have a you know well
77 is not dumpy now 77 is tall and this that's what i mean you know like a 73
is a good dumpy guy
your strong dumpy would be 66. that's a good solid dumpy now what what 63 is
nice dumpy what were you
when you played 77 so you were the 77. no no and are you finding much interest
in this theory around
the league well you know uh there are some teams that will listen to me because
i said this guy just
doesn't you can't play with that number and uh yeah i i do find some interest
they've changed uh some
things now in the nfl where a defensive lineman can't be an 80 number so it's
tough for a good
defensive lineman who's tall to play the game anymore yeah that's why you see
all the short
guys nose tackle these ugly uh ugly guys too oh yeah you gotta be ugly
especially play nose tackle
wear those big face masks now you have you have another theory about uh
facilities locker rooms
i really think i mean i i i seriously feel this that that the more money that
players make today
the the more sparse their locker room should be and i think when you pay a guy
millions of dollars
and then you have these big thick carpets and so on and let them come in he
forgets what football is
all about and they don't like to go out and play and i've seen it happen i
really believe years ago it
happened to kansas city chiefs you know they were a great football team then
they got arrowhead stadium and
they had thick carpets they had these whirlpools of 10 12 guys hank liked that
hank stram liked stuff
like that good carpet and so yeah he did well talking about hank locker room
see at oakland we believe
man nothing we wouldn't even put a carpet on the floor and we had the floor and
the towels we'd throw
some towels there and that was carpet but that was one of the advantages i
always felt that that we had
in oakland in the oakland coliseum is that it was tough to come out there we
had great fans here the
other team coming they would really get on really boom and being down there
below the locker rooms it
was you know kind of dirty and musty and stinky and and so on and now you're
talking stuff yeah now you're
doing real football and our guys kind of love that yeah you know the open raiders
one time
we were playing the chiefs and uh it was a day before the game and i was
walking out of our locker
room and i was going by the visiting team locker room the day before i saw
about five or six guys
out there exterminator type guys and i asked them what they were doing they
said well we have some rats we
found some rats in this locker room in the visiting team room and we're trying
to get rid of them i said get
rid of them baloney i said feed them yeah don't get rid of them i don't want
that's what i wouldn't let
them do it i said get out we'll pay you whatever you leave leave the rats and
you know if you found
something so now we're playing the chiefs the next day so i'm the host coach so
i figure well you know
you got to be a good host so i went up and it was the chiefs were in the locker
room this is a couple
hours before the game locker rooms before our game are very quiet so i went up
and i knocked in the door
and i said i'd like to see hank and they come up so i talked real loud and i
said hank listen we have a
problem here there's some rats in the locker room now we're trying to get rid
of them we're trying to
get rid of these rats we'll do something we're doing everything we can about
this thing but you know
and you can see the players they're afraid to put their helmets on they're
checking their pants and
take a lot but those types of things uh they help that's that's you know when
you talk about home
field advantage that's what you're talking about that's good that's good heady
football uh we're
going to pause for station identification john madden and i will return right
after that
uh we're talking uh with uh recent uh emmy award winner john madden now uh when
you were coaching
and of course you explained the home field advantage and what that means uh did
you have anything
inspirational to leave with players before they went out into combat yeah and i
had no idea what it
meant i used to always get in there and just before you know we'd get ready to
go out there would call
up all the players and i would say if we were kicking off or receiving and then
what we were going to do
and the last thing i always said was don't worry about the horse being blind
just load the wagon yeah
walk out i have no idea what it meant but my guys liked it you know they'd go
yeah you know boom we'd go
first out of there never never had anyone ask me hey coach what's that mean i
don't know but it sounds
good doesn't it hey don't worry about the horse being blind just load the wagon
that's right go uh
that makes it sound like you're going to accomplish something now you don't
know that you don't know
the origin of it you just came to you one day yeah i just i don't know i may
have heard it one day
or it just came to me one day and then i used it for years it'd be nice to have
that on a plaque
somewhere wouldn't it on a plaque don't worry about the horse being blind load
the wagon uh it was a
a pleasure meeting you i've admired your work for as long as you've been doing
it and uh again
congratulations on your emmy award and come back and see us again